Results tagged “barenakedladies”

All signs pointed to ice cream. But for some strange reason, our invitation to the Barenaked Ladies' mysterious press conference (held at the top of the CN Tower, we might add) left us in the dark. The banner-dragging bird, the sky-blue background peppered with white clouds and bubble letters—everything about the e-vite seemed eerily familiar. But it took Ed Robertson's unveiling of a giant tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream—called "If I had 1,000,000 Flavours"—for us to finally clue in.

Under the umbrella of Avaaz Canada’s wide-ranging efforts to “close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want,” the new, targeted campaign seeks to inform the public of what its supporters believe are Stephen Harper’s environmental shortfalls. According to Avaaz’s Executive Director Ricken Patel, “under the Conservative government our country is actively wrecking international progress on climate change. This song is an eloquent reminder that Canada doesn’t have to be this way—it’s our choice.” “You Have a Choice” was written and produced by K-OS and Ian Lefeuvre, and it includes a slew of Canadian artists such as Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies, Ben Kowalewicz of Billy Talent, Adam Gontier of Three Days Grace, Jason Collett of Broken Social Scene, and the Arts Offstage Choir. In the words of Patel, “these bright lights of the Canadian music scene are sending a message to voters: you can make a difference, and we need to come together and strategically support candidates who will defeat Stephen Harper and fight climate change.”

The Maple Leaf Foods meat recall has been extended to encompass more than 200 products made by the Toronto facility, and is expected to cost upwards of $20 million. In completely unrelated news, millions of Canadians have decided that maybe they're just going to have a salad for lunch today.

Maclean's devoted its cover article to Steven Page this week, for an enormously sad profile of the Barenaked Ladies' lead singer, including the lead-up to his cocaine arrest earlier this month and the fall-out from it. To quote NOW publisher and "old friend" Michael Hollett, "I was stunned, absolutely not a clue that he could be in this position. Steve likes fine wine, you know? He drinks it in moderation. That's Steven." [via MyHogtown.]

Snappy Answers runs every Saturday afternoon, except when Ms. Snappy Answers is in New York City, as she was last weekend—sorry! Send your questions, be they tough or trivial, to snappyanswers@torontoist.com.

Photo by Sylvain Dumais from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

From the million-record-selling stadium band to that guy who used to sell cassettes on Queen Street, Torontoist readers share their stories of the city's lost-but-not-forgotten musical acts. Today's Revisited review comes from Cameron Gordon.

If you're a fan of Guster, the very excellent, very melodic, and, as this picture aptly demonstrates, somewhat quirky band from Boston, you'd know that they pretty much never ever play a concert in Canada.

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but sometimes remaking other people's songs brings a whole new level of originality.

The Sun is reporting that the City may be owed millions of dollars in uncollected rent from its 905 properties. An audit discovered that the city also hasn't been raising rents with market rates and also asking for a part of business revenues from establishments that rent out spaces.

Toronto may be the business capital of Canada, but it's often an old dog with few new tricks. We also uncomfortably proclaim ourselves the cultural capital, not because Southern Ontario has much of its own, but because we import the most from elsewhere.

Looking to check out some live music this week? Here's your listing of what's happening around the city between August 7-13.

As you may already know, Toronto is hosting the 2006 International AIDS Conference in August. While you may want to take a vacation during this important conference... those of you still in the city can enjoy a star studded concert with a veritable cornucopia of CanCon to keep your interest.

The street was closed yesterday on Bay, just south of Bloor, to let the thousands of Leonard Cohen fans enjoy the outdoor performance at Indigo Books. And what a treat! Leonard was supposed to only introduce his partner, Anjani, who released a CD of music written by Cohen, and possibly sing a song or two, but the crowd got about 4 songs in total, including an unplanned jam session with Ron Sexsmith and the Barenaked Ladies.

Only someone of Leonard Cohen's stature could stop traffic on Bay St. It also helps when you're one of Canada's most esteemed poets and just released a book after 22 years. The "silent one" (apparently that's his Zen name) will be at the Bay and Bloor Indigo tomorrow at 4:00pm. They're closing Bay St. from Bloor to Charles to accommodate the mad throngs of Cohen devotees that'll show up.

So apparently there's some sort of thing going on up in Barrie at (Molson) Park Place this Saturday. A whole bunch of bands, raising awareness, blah blah blah. The bill looks something like this - African Guitar Summit, Barenaked Ladies, Blue Rodeo, Bruce Cockburn, Bryan Adams, The Bachman Cummings Band, Deep Purple, DobaCaracol featuring Kna'an, Gordon Lightfoot, Great Big Sea, Jann Arden, Jet, Les Trois Accords, Motley Crue, Our Lady Peace, Sam Roberts, Simple Plan, Tegan & Sara, The Tragically Hip, Tom Cochrane, DMC and a headlining performance by Neil Young. Tickets were free but are gone daddy gone and if you want one, well, there's always people who know people. Or you can stay home and watch it on TV - CTV begins coverage of the show, as well as the other ones taking place around the world, at 11AM Saturday morning.

Rumour has it the Barenaked Ladies, Jann Arden, Our Lady Peace, and Billy Talent are on board, but what about these potential additions:

It's easy to avoid The Game and Fifty Cents. Likewise for Nickelback. It's even pretty easy to stay away from Thornley and the Barenaked Ladies. They don't bother us, and we don't bother them. But there are some bands, SOME bands, that bring us to the brink of violent disgust; it's almost beyond hatred. One example that is often played out here on Mercredi Mixtape is our distaste for Las Vegas corporate rockers The Killers. Most likely the result of some unresolved childhood issues, Torontoist has a hard time sleeping at night simply knowing that these bum-wipes are out there. Usually the finger-pointing and 'rockist' accusations can be heard at this point -- as at a Killers-infested party last Saturday -- to which we can only shrug. What is the reason that decent, law abiding, level-headed human beings can be so easily duped by The Killers?

With the last Barenaked Ladies album, the city of Toronto has forever etched its name in annals music history. But besides BNL, this is a place that once saw Rick James and Neil Young bump out soul songs in Yorkville; that welcomed John Lennon's first solo concert; that was setting for more than one Mya video. Toronto is a city so steeped in music history that it would be outright irresponsible for the Torontoist to ignore this musical heritage. As such, each mercredi, or Wednesday, the Torontoist will offer some links to (legal) downloads or just info on our Toronto-centric music picks. Jam!